Scaling Sustainability Solutions : Invention, Innovation, and the Prototype-to-Plant Journey

Catalog description

Most climate technologies that work in the lab never reach commercial scale. This course is about why, and what the few that make it do differently. Using the System-Oriented Innovation Ecosystem framework from the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, the course focuses on the hardest scaling problem in climate: physical hardware. Carbon capture, green hydrogen, bio-based fuels, batteries - technologies where you can't just ship code, you must build factories. The course follows the full arc from invention through innovation to large-scale deployment, teaching the tools that determine whether a technology becomes a business: Wright's Law as a tool for forecasting unit cost trajectories, techno-economic analysis, right-to-left planning, modularity as a de-risking strategy, megaproject execution and failure modes, front-end loading, supply chain design for first-of-a-kind factories, and the prototype-to-pilot transition where most hardware ventures stall. Students also work through how technology performance, customer needs, and unit economics push against each other - and what that means for competing against entrenched fossil incumbents. The guest roster reflects what this course is really about - operators who have done it. Speakers include KR Sridhar (Founder and CEO, Bloom Energy), Rob Hanson (Co-Founder and CEO, Monolith), Jonathan Perry (President and CEO, ACES Delta / Chevron-Mitsubishi JV), and Michael Zamora (President, ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering), among others.